It's been an interesting year in technology. Nintendo invented a video game you control with a magic wand. A new kind of car traveled 3,145 miles on a single gallon of gas. A robot learned to ride a bike and somebody came up with a nanofabric umbrella that doesn't stay wet

The Rainmaker

Robert Visser / Photopress Washington

The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Case in point: this water-harvesting machine, which can pull up to 500 gal. of drinkable water per day out of thin air. Its precise workings aren't public, but they use a chemical process similar to the one that causes salt to absorb moisture from the air (and clump up your saltshaker). The water machine isn't particularly portable--it's 20 ft. long--but it will be a godsend for disaster victims or troops in desert combat.